So - now you're a writer. You've got your book deal and drunk the champagne. Congratulations. What next? Is this book going to be a one-off or just your first? If the former, don’t worry your pretty little head over things like repro, margins, PLR, bogofs, bungs and e-ink. But if you are serious about being a writer, you need to know a bit about the business. Your publishers will respect you more – or at least find you difficult to patronise – if you know what you're both talking about.

Monday, 2 January 2012

Devils and details

That post about research doesn't apply only to non-fiction. Even when you're making things up, you need to get the lies right. I've been doing the final reality-check on one of the vampire stories and noticed just how many things need to be checked. Just these from a chapter in the middle:

"Two hours later, the train slid into Gare du Nord."

Check on Eurostar timetable that it takes just over two hours from St Pancras. It does.

"... Juliette at the front of the boat, standing like a figurehead against the setting sun"

Simple enough - but check a map of Paris to make sure the setting sun would be behind someone on a bateau mouche going past Notre Dame.

Same evening, after a lot has happened:

"See you in the hotel bar at 7.” An hour.

So what time was sunset in Paris in early November? Was there enough time for all that to happen? No. Sunset was 5:30. Not time to nearly drown, be rescued, go home, get changed, have a shower and arrange a meeting for 7 while 7 is still an hour in the future. Change to meeting in the bar at 9.

"The executioner's black hood..."

Look at engravings of numerous executions by guillotine: the executioner is never hooded. Change that.

Oh, and a much bigger issue I noticed - a key character is in Paris in one book and in Russia in another book. At the same time. Not even vampires can do that. Calendar change....

It's easy to think you know what's happening, but important to make sure it actually could happen like that. So this is just a reminder not to be complacent about the lies you tell.

10 comments:

Ah yes, train timetables - and how old you need to be before you can travel alone - and even when you have the answer to that it may still not be quite what you thought it was! I have been battling with that. This was a lovely reminder of the need not to be complacent!

Yes indeed, very good advice. In one book I had a character eating three breakfasts. What's even more remarkable NO ONE NOTICED. Not me, not proof readers, not many translators...only the FINNISH edition therefore of this book now has proper continuity!

I had a character locked in a bedroom and run out of the room a bit later. I'd forgotten she was locked in. It's still there in the book and no one has ever mentioned it. Hang on - maybe no one has ever read it.

Also, I remember noticing in a wellknown award-winning novel, a woman picks up her dress in one hand, carries and candle in the other and opens the door with ... the other.

Totally agree. Without research everything can fall apart. I switched the location of my fictional Brighton restaurant half way through the third draft of my first book, and now none of the logistics make sense. Still rankles..

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